APR 2017 Hemisphere of the Earth Is Now Hyades
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Page 1 Skylights Newsletter of the Astronomical Society of Northern New England progress around the sun. We will not lose What’s Up In April Mars completely in our western sky until about one month after summer starts. Like a By Bernie Reim big cruise ship sailing through the newly opened Northwest Passage, watch closely as he month of April is named for Mars cruises between two distinct and inter- aprilis, which mean opening, or esting star clusters in Taurus, the famous aperture. That is what the northern Pleaides or 7 sisters and the less famous Hyades. This will start on the 21 st and the red APR 2017 hemisphere of the earth is now doing as this is the first full month planet will finish its remarkable passage of spring. The days are now getting longer and (from our perspective) by the end of the warmer even as the nights are getting shorter month. In reality Mars is now over 200 mil- and warmer. That makes this a great time to get lion miles away, which is about as far away out under the stars and enjoy the early spring as it can get from us in our respective orbits skies and the earth beneath those skies. around the sun. That is about 20 minutes at Member of NASA’s the speed of light. Mars could get as close as There are several good highlights this month, 33 million miles at opposition, which is as there are every month. Mercury will be at its about 7 times closer than its farthest distance highest and brightest for the year in the evening from Earth. The next Mars opposition is not sky during the first week of this month. Jupiter until July of 2018 and the last one was back th will reach opposition on Friday the 7 , Saturn in May of 2016, so the red planet will still will begin its westward, or retrograde motion continue to drift farther away from us until one day before that on the way to its own about the time summer starts this year. opposition in June, Mars will pass between the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters in Taurus, and The Hyades star cluster, which marks the Venus will make a dramatic morning face of Taurus the Bull, contains about 400 Astronomical League appearance rapidly climbing higher into our sky just as it rapidly dropped out of our evening sky “ Continued on page 2 ” ASNNE MISSION towards the end of last month. The Lyrid Meteor Shower peaks on the 22 nd . Then there Inside This Issue ASNNE is an will even be a couple of good comets, one of incorporated, non- which may even become visible without Club Contact List pg 2 profit, scientific and binoculars. Another bonus this month will be educational two asteroids visible in Leo, but you will need a Moon Data pg 3,4 organization with Sky Object Of The Month three primary goals: small telescope to visit with these primordial objects orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. 1) To have fun NASA’s Space Place pg 5 sharing our Our first and fastest planet, Mercury, will be Club Items For Sale knowledge and at its very best for the year during the first few Meteor Showers in 2016 interest with others. evenings this month. It will reach its greatest eastern elongation from the sun (similar to a last 2) To provide basic What It’s Like on a TRAPPIST-1 pg 6,7 quarter moon) at 19 degrees and it will not set education in Planet astronomy and until about 9 pm, which is much later than related sciences to Mercury would usually set if it is visible at all in all who are the evening sky. Look for it about 15 degrees Astro Photos pg 8 interested. below and to the right of Mars in the evening sky, in about the same location that Venus was Club Meeting & Star Party Dates pg 9 3) To promote the last month. Directions ASNNE Locations science of Mars continues to slowly fade out and move Astronomy. Become a Member pg 10 eastward at the rate of one constellation per month, roughly keeping up with our own Page 2 Skylights What’s Up “ Continued from page 1 ” Saturn now rises about 1 am and will end its stars and is only 150 light years away, making it Club Contacts normal, eastward motion one day before Jupiter the closest star cluster to Earth. The bright orange reaches opposition. Saturn will not reach opposi- star at one end of the Hyades, called Aldebaran, is tion until June 15. Officers: not part of that cluster since it is only 65 light years away, along our line of sight to the Hyades. April 1. Mercury is near Mars in the evening sky. President: The Pleiades, the other cluster that Mars will soon April 3. First quarter moon is at 2:39 p.m. EDT. Ron Burk be navigating around, is not related to the Hyades [email protected] either. The 7 Sisters are about 400 light years away April 6. Saturn is stationary in the sky, starting its and contain about 500 stars. retrograde motion the next day. Vice President: The Hyades star cluster is related to the Bee- April 7. The moon passes very close to Regulus Joan Chamberlin hive cluster in Cancer the Crab. Both of those clus- this morning. Jupiter is at opposition. The Comp- [email protected] ters actually came from a common source in our ton Gamma Ray observatory was deployed on this Milky Way galaxy and have been migrating away day in 1991. Secretary: from that location ever since. We know that based April 10. The moon passes near Jupiter this eve- Carl Gurtman on the age of their stars, their metallicity, and their ning. [email protected] proper motion around the center of our galaxy. April 11. Full moon is at 2:08 a.m. This is also Since we are always looking back into time as called the Grass, Egg, or Pink Moon. Halley’s Treasurer: we are looking out into space, we are not seeing Comet was closest to Earth on this day in 1986. Ian Durham the Pleiades the way they look now, but we are April 12. Yuri Gagarin became the first human in [email protected] seeing them the way they looked when Galileo space on this day in 1961. first pointed a telescope to the sky and started to Board of Directors: expand our awareness beyond Earth. April 16. Wilbur Wright was born on this day in Knowing the distance to any star or celestial object 1867. The first flight of a powered aircraft was in in space when you look at it through a telescope, Gary Asperschlager 1903 and we flew all the way to the moon just 66 [email protected] directly ties you in to the history of what was hap- years later. pening on Earth at that time. When you look at the much closer Hyades cluster, be aware that the April 19. Last quarter moon is at 5:57 a.m. Larry Burkett Civil War in our country was just ending about [email protected] April 22. The Lyrid meteor shower peaks this Sat- that time, 150 years ago. urday morning after midnight. You could see up to 15 meteors per hour, all emanating from the con- Star Party Or you could go deeper into space and look at a stellation of Lyra. These meteors are caused by the Co-ordinator: galaxy in Leo that is 65 million light years away, remembering that is when the last dinosaur died on earth passing through the debris trail of Comet Thatcher. These tiny pieces of comet dust will be TBD earth. A comet or asteroid hit the earth then and its hitting our upper atmosphere at about 30 miles per 150-mile-wide crater is visible under the Gulf of Mexico just off the Yucatan Peninsula. They only second, leaving bright streaks. This is also Earth Skylights Editor: Day. The first one was in 1970, just after we all found that crater less than 30 years ago since it is underwater. saw those great pictures of the earth from space Paul Kursewicz from our first trip to the moon in July of 1969. [email protected] If there is a highly intelligent civilization on a planet around a star in a galaxy that distance from April 23. The moon passes near Venus this morn- Website Manager: us that can see the surface of Earth through some ing. kind advanced telescope or other instrument, they April 25. The Hubble Space Telescope was de- Nan Musgrave could see, right now, this very second, exactly ployed on this day in 1990. It is still up there work- [email protected] what happened to create that great mass extinction. ing great and having taken over a million images The only problem would be that they could never and completely transformed our view of the uni- NASA Night Sky get that message back to the current humans on verse. It was a bigger leap in knowledge than we Network Earth because we are now living 65 million years had when Galileo first looked up with his little in the future from that critical moment in time. Co-ordinator: telescope and discovered things we had never Jupiter will reach its opposition on Friday, April dreamed of, but are now completely taken for Joan Chamberlin 7th . That means that it will rise exactly at sunset, granted as obvious science.